Karen McNamara AIBS Final Report AIBS Research Dec. 2008-Aug.

2009 I received a Junior AIBS fellowship in 2007 and spent 9 months in Bangladesh conducting research on the Unani and Ayurvedic medical practices in Bangladesh. Originally, I had asked AIBS for an additional 7 months funding after my Fulbright in order to complete my proposed research. However, I had to leave the US later than planned because there were some logistical problems getting my visa and AIBS could not help at the time because they were in the middle of changing affiliations in Bangladesh. Therefore, I was in Bangladesh under the auspices of the AIBS fellowship from Dec. 2008 through August 2009, which was 9 months instead of 7 months. I researched the National Archives and newspapers to learn more about health policies and debates about Unani and Ayurveda during the Pakistan period, participated in a short field class at BRAC School of Public health to learn more about current public health issues, took a month-long course on Unani at the Tibbia Habiba School offered for non-registered practitioners to get government certification, and attended various conferences on public health in Dhaka. In addition I contacted and interviewed many NGOs who are working in with herbal medicine or drug policy, as well as pharmaceutical companies and professors at various colleges. Also, I spent time interviewing practitioners, students, and patients of Unani and Ayurvedic medicine at the Government College of Unani and Ayurvedic Medicine I spent time in various clinics connected to these schools in order to understand more about the relationships between patients, practitioners and companies. This allowed me to interview patients, which is a difficult group to get access to. I also made some field visits to rural sites to get a perspective on these medical practices outside of the city and to visit an NGO project which is promoting herbal medicine. I also visited various companies that manufacture Unani, Ayurvedic, and herbal medicines in Dhaka. In my original proposal, I had not realized the complex connections between different companies, schools, and NGOs involved in herbal medicine in Bangladesh. Originally, I also had planned on doing research in different pharmacy shops in various neighborhoods in Dhaka. I found this part of my research impossible to do. This was due to the paralyzing traffic jams in Dhaka, getting access and the large amount of time needed to gain trust and relationships with so many shops, and the uncomfortable nature of being in such public spaces as a woman. Thus, I ended spending more time in clinics connected to various schools. I see my work as contributing to critical work in the anthropology of Bangladesh, and both medical and pharmaceutical anthropology. My research showed how knowledge about herbal medicines and healing is constructed and contested in Bangladesh. The renewed interest in herbal medicines in Bangladesh is related to global WTO rules, national history and interests, the success of the allopathic pharmaceutical industry and the market potential of producing and exporting herbal medicines globally. I examined the various sets of values, ideas and ethical concerns related to every phase: from licensing, production, marketing, distribution and prescription, to the consumption of herbal medicines. I also examined the ethics of care, as they relate to the diagnosing and treating of patients through the consumption of herbal medicines. I looked at how these medicines have different meanings for practitioners and patients and how these meanings intersect with ideas about authenticity, tradition, commercialization, Islam, and sexuality. I explored how both traditional and allopathic pharmaceutical companies make knowledge claims about herbal medicine and how these claims are viewed by various practitioners of traditional medicine. My research also asks what counts as legitimate modern medical and scientific knowledge and how are these forms of knowledge influenced by politics, bureaucracy, and profit-making?

Papers presented on this research in 2009: 2009 Manual as Manifesto: Bongoj Poribar and the Accupressure Movement in Bangladesh. Paper presented for the session titled Manual Matters: Mediating Knowledge in Colonial and Postcolonial South Asia at the 38th Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, WI, Oct. 22-5. 2009 Manual as Manifesto: Bongoj Poribar and the Accupressure Movement in Bangladesh. South Asia Center, Syracuse University, Oct. 13. 2009 License to Sell: The Consumption of Herbal Medicine in Bangladesh. Paper presented for the session titled Rethinking Health and Consumption: Models of Well-being, Paradoxes of Values at Medical Anthropology at the Intersections: Celebrating 50 Years of Interdisciplinarity, Yale University, Sep. 24-27. In terms of support from AIBS. It would be great if there was some kind of physical office (or a contact person) in Dhaka that scholars could visit and get advise on housing (places to rent, guest houses, home-stays, etc.). I spent over a month to find an apartment to rent in Dhaka. I did this completely on my own by renting rickshaws by the hour and scouring neighborhoods for To Let signs, asking the guard about details, and setting up interviews with landlords. Someone without my skill in Bangla or familiarity with Dhaka would not have been able to do this -especially if research requires that the scholar lives outside of the ex-pat neighborhoods of Banani and Gulshan (like I did). Also, if AIBS were able to facilitate the process of obtaining a research visa, I think the politics and bureaucracy involved in the process would be expedited. It worked well for me to receive my money in dollars and just use the ATM to withdraw money in taka. If AIBS gives money in taka, then it would be helpful for them to facilitate in the process of setting up a local bank account. Also, a local office would have helped in terms of getting official letters introducing me as a scholar affiliated with AIBS that I could have presented to different organizations that I was researching with. Also, if there was an AIBS representative in Dhaka, I would have had someone to ask about what/how to get in touch with different organizations and government officials, etc. I did this on my own in an ad hoc method, which took months to build up networks and make connections with various people.